Understanding RPE, Heart rate, and power
Using RPE, Heart Rate, and Power When Cycling and Running
As the weather shifts and cooler mornings roll in, your workouts might start to feel a little different. Maybe your heart rate isn’t spiking like it did in the summer heat, or your pace suddenly feels easier at the same effort. Seasonal changes—especially moving from hot, humid days to crisp fall air—can have a big impact on your heart rate and overall training intensity. Understanding how to adjust your effort as the weather changes helps you train smarter and stay consistent year-round.
When it comes to training smarter—not just harder—understanding how to measure your effort is key. Whether you’re running, cycling, or training for a triathlon, using a combination of RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion), heart rate, and power gives you a more complete picture of your performance and helps guide your training more effectively.
Let’s break down what each of these tools offers and how to use them together.
🧠 RPE — The Foundation of All Effort
RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion) is a simple 1–10 scale that measures how hard an effort feels.
1–3: Easy / recovery effort
4–6: Moderate, steady endurance work
7–8: Tempo or threshold work
9–10: Race pace or max effort
RPE is subjective but powerful—it trains your body awareness and helps you adapt when external factors (heat, fatigue, stress) affect your numbers. Even with all the tech available, learning what each effort feels like is one of the most valuable skills for endurance athletes.
💡 Coach’s Tip: Practice assigning an RPE score during and after each workout. Over time, you’ll notice your “feel” matches closely with your data.
❤️ Heart Rate — Measuring Your Body’s Response
Heart rate (HR) tells you how your cardiovascular system is responding to the work you’re doing. It’s a great indicator of aerobic fitness and recovery status.
Pros:
Excellent for building endurance and pacing long workouts
Shows how your body is adapting to training over time
Helps prevent overtraining by tracking trends
Cons:
Can lag behind actual effort (especially during intervals)
Affected by heat, hydration, fatigue, and stress
How to Use It:
Use heart rate zones to guide your endurance and tempo sessions. For example, staying in Zone 2 (60–70% of max HR) builds aerobic efficiency without unnecessary fatigue.
💡 Coach’s Tips: If your heart rate is unusually high or low for a given RPE, take note. It could mean you need more recovery—or that external conditions (like heat) are affecting your effort. As we hit fall and cooler temps be careful of over doing it if using heart rate, it will require a lot more effort to get your heart rate up, be sure you are sticking to your plan.
⚡ Power — Measuring Your Output (Cycling )
Power measures the actual work you’re doing—the watts you produce to move yourself forward. Unlike heart rate, it’s not influenced by temperature or caffeine; it reacts instantly to changes in effort.
Cycling: Power meters are the gold standard for precision training. They let you target specific zones for intervals, track progress, and manage pacing during races.
How to Use It:
Train and race using power zones to maintain consistent output, especially on variable terrain. For example, holding steady power up a hill helps prevent overexertion compared to relying on pace alone.
💡 Coach’s Tip: Pair power with heart rate data and RPE. If power stays constant but heart rate drifts up or you feel your RPE rising, it’s a sign of rising fatigue or heat stress.
🧩 Bringing It All Together
No single metric tells the full story. The best approach combines all three:
Scenario: RPE, Heart Rate, Power Easy endurance ride Feels light (3–4)Zone 2 60–70% FTP; Tempo run Controlled (6–7)Zone 3–4 80–90% threshold; power Race day Pushed but sustainable (8–9)Zone 4–5 Target race power or pace
When you understand how these numbers align, you can train and race with confidence—even when one data point (like HR or power) isn’t behaving as expected.
🚀 Final Thoughts
Technology is a powerful tool, but your body is the ultimate guide. Learning to use RPE, heart rate, and power together gives you the flexibility to adapt to any condition and the awareness to know when to push—or pull back.
Consistency, awareness, and balance across these tools lead to smarter training, better pacing, and stronger race performances.
